This invention relates to firearms safety and more particularly to a safety mechanism which can be installed during initial fabrication of a firearm, or as a retrofit installation, or as safety lock mechanism selectively installed and removable from the firearm, the mechanism disabling the firing mechanism of the weapon unless a properly voice coded input is supplied to the safety mechanism to either enable the firing mechanism or allowing the safety mechanism to be removed from the firearm so it can then be fired. Further, the invention permits the storage of relevant information about the gun and its owner on the weapon for ease of verification of gun ownership.
Gun safety is a universal concern. There are countless news stories of individuals, particularly children, who are killed or maimed because of the inadvertent discharge of a firearm. Stories also abound about the person who shoots himself while cleaning a weapon he or she knew was unloaded. Or, there are the shootings which occur because someone wrongly suspected that a person was a thief or robber who had broken into a home only to find that it was a loved one who turned out to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The tragedy which results from these situations has far reaching consequences for both the family or families of those involved, and the community. At the same time, there are also numerous incidents where a firearm is stolen during the burglary of a home, car, or business, with the weapon subsequently being used by a criminal to kill someone during the commission of another crime.
While it may impossible to ever fully stop these kinds of incidents, absence the complete abolition of firearms and their removal from the American scene, it may be possible to substantially reduce the loss of life and terrible injuries which result from either the accidental discharge of a gun or the potential use of a stolen firearm by a criminal As a result many more people will be able to lead active and productive lives and a major cause of accidental death may be eliminated from society.
In addition to the issue of gun safety, there is a continuing concern with respect to gun registration and identification. Guns when they are made have serial numbers inscribed on them. This can be erased so, a gun, if stolen, may be difficult or impossible to trace. Or, if a person with a gun is stopped and investigated by police officers, it may take some time to verify that the possessor of the weapon is the owner. This takes time away from the police officers performing other important functions, and also unnecessarily delays the gun's legal owner as well. It would be helpful if, at the time a gun is purchased, important information regarding the firearm could be conveniently stored on the weapon and readily retrieved so the weapon's owner is easily identified.